An incomplete record of things designed, made, observed, read, rejected, appreciated, or created.

Here, HBR, let me translate for you.

This article from the Harvard Business Review has been making the rounds on twitter lately, as designers and other “creatives” rightly take offense to it’s demeaning tone and off-base “tips” on managing creative employees. I thought I’d take the opportunity to translate their 7 rules into actual advice that won’t send designers (and employees in general) running from your team:

HBR: Spoil them and let them fail.
TRANSLATION: Give employees a safe environment for creative risk-taking.

HBR: Surround them by semi-boring people.
TRANSLATION: Create collaborative, multidisciplinary teams to tackle hard problems.

HBR: Only involve them in meaningful work.
TRANSLATION: Make sure teams understand the company’s strategy and goals and how their projects fit in.

HBR: Don’t pressure them.
TRANSLATION: Create a flexible work environment that lets employees work in ways that they find most creative and productive.

HBR: Pay them poorly.
TRANSLATION: There’s nothing good here. Pay all employees what they’re worth, creative or otherwise.

HBR: Surprise them.
TRANSLATION: see #4.

HBR: Make them feel important.
TRANSLATION: Show them that you and the company value their contributions.

2 notes
Sketchnotes from the March AIGA Raleigh Community meeting. (at New Kind)

Sketchnotes from the March AIGA Raleigh Community meeting. (at New Kind)

Translating the standard creative brief.

Translating the standard creative brief.

I made a couple of new additions to my collection of clip art and source books at Reader’s Corner today—one of medieval tiles, the other of pre-columbian circle motifs.

Here’s a couple of my favorites—a tile with a very clever repeat (that’s one tile making the entire pattern), and some “unidentified flowers”.

I like this little guy a lot. #meetingdoodles

I like this little guy a lot. #meetingdoodles

Holiday cards are ready! The cards I started a couple weeks ago arrived over the weekend and are all set for the holiday craft fairs.

I’ve illustrated all four by hand, colored in photoshop, and had them printed by Moo. I’ll probably put a few sets in the Dull Roar Shop after this week’s fair, if you’re interested!

Monster horde waiting to become Christmas presents…

Monster horde waiting to become Christmas presents…

I designed this little guy for opensource.com way back in 2010. It popped up again today thanks to some love from ffffound, I Love Charts, and Laughing Squid. I’m reblogging it here so I can keep track of all the notes!

I designed this little guy for opensource.com way back in 2010. It popped up again today thanks to some love from ffffound, I Love Charts, and Laughing Squid.

I’m reblogging it here so I can keep track of all the notes!

What do you get when you give a life-sized fiberglass cow to the creative team at an open source software company? A cow-laboration, of course. The cow is for CowParade 2012, a public art project to benefit the North Carolina Children’s Hospital. We’ve been collecting (and drawing) cows for a few weeks, and are almost ready to start applying them to our big model cow. So far we have 70+ fantastic submissions from employees, community members, and friends. You can see them all on flickr. Do you want to contribute a cow to our cow-laboration? We’d love to have it. Details about submitting your own can be found on opensource.com.

What do you get when you give a life-sized fiberglass cow to the creative team at an open source software company?

A cow-laboration, of course.

The cow is for CowParade 2012, a public art project to benefit the North Carolina Children’s Hospital. We’ve been collecting (and drawing) cows for a few weeks, and are almost ready to start applying them to our big model cow. So far we have 70+ fantastic submissions from employees, community members, and friends. You can see them all on flickr.

Do you want to contribute a cow to our cow-laboration? We’d love to have it. Details about submitting your own can be found on opensource.com.

In a few months Red Hat is moving to new digs in downtown Raleigh. The renovation of the new space involves setting aside casual meeting space with wall-sized illustrations created in collaboration with the opensource.com team.

I’ve been working on several of these in the past few months, so I thought I’d share a couple of my favorites. These, of course, have been re-cropped so that they can be used as editorial illustration on the opensource.com site (so not wall-sized, at least not yet!).

Sketchbook | Last week I had the opportunity to attend the InHOWse Managers Conference in Boston. I’ll be posting my notes from some of my favorite sessions over the next week or so.

First up, Grant McCracken. Grant is an MIT anthropologist and author of several books focusing on the intersection of design, ethnography, and culture. At HOW, he discussed how creative people can use their intuitive knowledge of culture to help the corporations they work for respond to our rapidly changing world.

Sketchnotes from an excellent talk Julie Beeler and Michael Pittman of Second Story gave last night for AIGA Raleigh. My Instagram snap of my notebook got a huge response, so I thought I’d post a proper scanned version that can actually be read. Update: AIGA Raleigh featured my sketchnotes in the writeup of the talk. Neat!

Sketchnotes from an excellent talk Julie Beeler and Michael Pittman of Second Story gave last night for AIGA Raleigh.

My Instagram snap of my notebook got a huge response, so I thought I’d post a proper scanned version that can actually be read.

Update: AIGA Raleigh featured my sketchnotes in the writeup of the talk. Neat!

Monotype print of a robot who’s just made a huge mistake. One color on Arches paper, printed at Pullen Arts Center. Monotype, besides being a type foundry, is a printing method that involves removing color from an inked plate. Unlike other printing methods, you get only one print (hence the name). Despite being a terribly inefficient process, it’s pretty fun and I’m charmed by the soft-edged effect it produces.

Monotype print of a robot who’s just made a huge mistake.

One color on Arches paper, printed at Pullen Arts Center.

Monotype, besides being a type foundry, is a printing method that involves removing color from an inked plate. Unlike other printing methods, you get only one print (hence the name). Despite being a terribly inefficient process, it’s pretty fun and I’m charmed by the soft-edged effect it produces.

Linoleum block print of my dog, Millie. One color on “cement green” French paper, printed at Pullen Arts Center.

Linoleum block print of my dog, Millie.

One color on “cement green” French paper, printed at Pullen Arts Center.

This work by Libby Levi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.